


30 Day OTP Challenge

by HouseAu3



Series: The Hale Files - drabbles [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV), The Dresden Files - Jim Butcher
Genre: Developing Friendships, Developing Relationship, Established Relationship, M/M, One Shot, Sappy short stories are sappy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-06
Updated: 2015-04-08
Packaged: 2018-03-21 14:09:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3695213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HouseAu3/pseuds/HouseAu3
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Various short stories set in different periods of time in this series.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Your Hands

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [30天本命挑戰](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3695273) by [HouseAu3](https://archiveofourown.org/users/HouseAu3/pseuds/HouseAu3)



> I'm feeling stressed lately, so, um, I'm writing these for fun? I'll try not to spoil anything important in the main stories.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Holding hands
> 
> Set after the sixth main story in the series. (Well, that's my estimation anyway.)

It’s their own way of communication. It has been so since not long after they first met.

_Let me share your pain_ , Stiles said with his extended hand, palm held up. _I’m not taking anything away. I just don’t want you to go through any unnecessary torture._

_I’m here._ Stiles clapped a hand on his shoulder. _When you need me, just turn around._

_You fucking idiot!_ Stiles held his face with trembling hands. _Don’t leave me behind!_

_You’re here._ Stiles covered the mark on his back with a hand. _Thank you._

Since he was a teenager, before he met Stiles, every emotion he had has brought him nothing but pain, so he learned to be detached, and he learned to suppress himself, until his own emotion felt as foreign as someone else’s dream that he happened to have a glimpse on, like a distant, meaningless echo.

(“Don’t give up feeling, Derek,” Laura said in a unsteady voice, holding him in her arms. “Please”

“I don’t know how,” he whispers, burying his face into her shoulder. “I really don’t.”)

Then Stiles took his hand, and suddenly he realized just how much he had forgotten and how much he had lost. That pair of hands made him feel safe, and that scared him. He thought about Laura’s hug. He thought about his mother. He thought about the home he once had a long time ago. One day he would lose those hands, he told himself. Don’t relied on them. Don’t get attached. One day he would take those hands and feel no warmth.

He doesn’t know what he would do. He doesn’t know if he would be able to stand up again. He doesn’t know how much pain the heart he had finally put back together can take.

“You’re brooding again, aren’t you?” Stiles asks with an eyebrow raised and his lips quirked up, reaching out to poke him right between his eyebrows. “This is your brooding eyebrows.”

He wordlessly takes Stiles hand in his, slips his fingers through Stiles’s, and lays their interlocked hands on the mark on Stiles lower stomach.

_I love you_ , he tries to say, but these three words have forever be tainted by his past memories. He tightens his hand and lays his head on Stiles’s shoulder, trying to convey the overwhelming emotions he’s feeling now.

“I, too,” Stiles says knowingly, covering his shoulder blades with the other hand.

The link between them starts humming, pushing a steady stream of warmth into him, spreading through his entire body. He hasn’t felt this safe for a long time. He hasn’t been this scared, or this happy for a long time.

Maybe someday he would lose him. Maybe that would kill him. Maybe he would give up feeling completely. But-

“What do you want for dinner?”

“What? Isn’t it my turn today?”

“Just feel like cooking.”

“Well, do you feel like doing the dishes as well?“

He chuckles and rubs his face against Stiles’s neck. Stiles laughs hysterically and pushes him away, face flushed, smile wide, eyes crinkling, brown eyes bright reflecting brilliant light.

Maybe the man before him would be his death, but right now, at this moment, nothing is worth the risk more than this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry for being a big softie. I'm in need of fluff right now.


	2. Threshold

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cuddling
> 
> Set sometime after the third main story.

Derek knocks on the door and waits. The sheriff opens it not long after.

“Hey, thanks for coming,” the sheriff says. “Melissa can’t make it, but I can’t just leave him alone. You know how he is.”

Derek looks over the sheriff’s shoulder and finds Stiles at the dining table drawing on his cast with a marker. He looks so serious and careful you’d think he’s diffusing a bomb.

“Unfortunately, yes.”

“Hey,” Stiles yells from the dining room. “I can hear you.”

The sheriff snorts. “Come in. You have a long day ahead of you.”

He steps aside to let Derek in. Derek walks through the door and feels the threshold part for him. He’s always amazed by the strength of the Stilinskis’ home’s threshold. Normally in a single parent household with an only child, especially when the parent has to work a lot, the threshold tends to be weaker than the average house; The Stilinskis and the McCalls, though, have threshold just as strong, if not stronger. He wonders if it is because they have been a de facto family for years, or if it has something to do with the way they love.

“I’m going to work then. I’ll try to be back before midnight.” The sheriff claps a hand on his shoulder. “Behave, son!”

“Wait, dad,” Stiles says as he stands up and walks toward them. He lifts his stiff arms as much as he can get away with to give his dad a hug. “Okay, now you can go.”

The sheriff smiles and ruffles Stiles’s hair. “Call me if you need me.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll take care of Derek.”

The sheriff snorts and walks out. Stiles’s eyes follow his dad along until he drives away, and then he turns to Derek.

“I told him not to call you,” Stiles says. “I don’t need babysitting.”

Derek closes the door and walks into the living room. “Your dad disagrees.”

“Well, he’s my dad.” Stiles trails after him. “Seriously, you must have something better to do. It’s Friday night.”

Derek knows what he meant, of course, but this kind of things have long lost their meanings for him.

“I’m aware of that.” Derek collects the dishes on the table and brings them into the kitchen. It’s odd how quickly he’s come to know this place. There’s a familiarity he had thought he’d never had again.

“You should get a life, man.” Stiles leans against the counter, watching him. “You could have all the lives.”

“You aren’t making much sense.” Derek smiles to himself at the sight of the remaining salad dressing on the plate. He can imagine exactly how this meal has gone. “This is my life.”

And he is okay with it. He’s more than okay with it. He feels… content; happy, even, if he’d allow himself.

“If you say so.” Stiles scratches his head. “Just, you don’t need to stay here, or do anything.”

Derek puts the plates in the dryer and turns it on. “I know.”

“Good,” Stiles says with an awkward smile. “I’m gonna go to the bathroom.”

Derek dries his hands and follows him. Stiles stops him with a hand on his shoulder.

“Dude, I can piss on my own.”

Derek stares at the sling on his right shoulder and the cast on his left arm.

“I’ll manage.”

Derek nods and watches him get into the bathroom.

*

“Fucking hell, I can’t piss with you right outside the door. I need some privacy, man.”

“How do you do it in the public restroom then?”

“Oh my god, just go away! You’re worse than my dad!”

Derek takes exactly four steps away and closes his eyes.

“Stop _Listening_!”

*

“I swear to god, if you open every door for me I’m gonna smother you with a pillow in your sleep.”

“I have had worse.”

“That’s not the point! I can open a damn door!”

*

“Stop fussing over me.”

“I’m not fussing.”

“This is the fifth time you’ve asked me if I need something, _in_ _ten minutes_.”

*

“I can change on my own!”

A yelp.

“Okay, I can’t change on my own. You can stop looking so smug right now.”

*

Stiles slumps onto the couch and sighs. “You’re exhausting.”

“That’s my line.” Derek sits down next to him and hands him his book. Stiles puts it on his lap and winces as his right shoulder gets in contact with the couch. Derek grabs a pillow and puts it behind Stiles’ shoulder.

“Have you read this?”

“I’m not doing your reading assignment for you, Stiles.”

“Why not? You seem so keen on doing everything else for me.”

The pillow falls a little. Stiles tries to push it back up and ends up pulling his shoulder. A pained gasp escapes from his lips. Derek swears and adjusts it for him.

It takes less than a minute for Stiles to start squirming again.

“Stop moving,” Derek snaps.

“I’m just trying to find a more comfortable - _ow_. I hate my shoulder.”

Derek lets out a heavy sigh and pulls Stiles into his arms.

“Um, what?” Stiles tilts his head to look up at him. “Dude, are you _cuddling_ _me_?”

“No,” Derek says. “I’m letting you use me as a pillow so you’ll stay still.”

“I cuddle with my pillow,” Stiles says with a wide grin. “You’re cuddling me! You’re totally a cuddler!”

Derek rolls his eyes at him. “Shut up and read your book.”

Stiles chuckles and leans into him. Derek barely resists the urge to wrap his arms around him.

“You’re heavier than you look.”

“Are you calling me fat?”

Derek snorts. “No.”

“What then?”

Derek smirks at him and says nothing.

“I can see right through you, Derek Hale. That’s totally a compliment.”

Derek pokes at his rib. “ _Read_.”

“Fine, _dad_.”

It’s oddly calming, listening to Stiles’ non-stop commentary of the book as he reads. It should have been annoying. He should have been irritated. But instead, he’s getting more and more relaxed, and he finds himself laughing at the sarcastic remarks Stiles has been making.

This is his life, and he is content.

The way Stiles’ breathing quickens jerk him out of his thoughts. Derek reaches for his mark and sees pain on the other end.

“Have you taken your painkillers?”

Stiles shakes his head. “Didn’t want to,” he says between shallow breaths. “Hard to concentrate.”

“Your grades are not more important than yourself.”

“It’s not about that.” Stiles slowly lets out a long, shuddering breath. “Just- it’s not about that.”

Derek doesn’t ask. He’s not good at asking. He’s even worse at answering. Instead, he covers Stile’s mark and reaches for the pain.

“Don’t-”

“Just half of it,” Derek says. “Let me?”

Stiles turns back to hold his gaze, and then he nods.

It has become easier and easier for Derek to do this. _It’s about trust_ , his mom had said. He’s not ready to think about the implication yet.

Slowly, Stiles starts to relax again, and his heart rate and breathing slow down. Stiles sighs and buries his face into Derek’s shirt.

“You’re warm,” Stiles mumbles, voice muffled.

“You sound drunk,” Derek says with a laugh.

Stiles falls asleep not long after that, and Derek doesn’t wake him.

He thinks about getting up, but before he can make up his mind, he falls asleep as well.

*

The sound of door opening jerks him awake. He takes his hand off Stiles and sits up. Stiles grumbles in his sleep and snuggles closer to him.

“Relax,” the sheriff whispers. “He hasn’t slept so well for a while.”

“I, uh,” Derek struggles to explain himself. “He was in pain, so-”

“Like I said, relax.” The sheriff shakes his head, laughing. “Better get him in bed though.”

“I can carry him,” Derek blurts out, and immediately kicks himself for that. “I mean, he’s heavier than he looks, and uh, I’m supernatural?”

“Jesus, Derek, why are you so nervous?” The sheriff takes his jacket off and drapes it over the couch. “Come on. I’ll offer to carry him myself, but my back is going to really hate me tomorrow. Better leave it to you.”

“Okay. Yeah.” Derek puts an arm under Stiles’ back and the back of his knees, carefully lifting him up. He follows the sheriff upstairs, trying his best not to jostle Stiles’ injured shoulder and arm. The sheriff opens the door for him. Derek gently lays Stiles on the bed and pulls the blanket over him.

“Thanks, Derek.”

Derek nods. “I should go.”

“Going to check on everyone?”

Derek blinks at him.

“You are not exactly discreet, Derek.” The sheriff shrugs. “We’ve seen you making rounds every day before you go back to your place.”

Derek looks around, unsure of how to respond.

“You don’t need to hide in your car, you know.” The sheriff puts a hand on his shoulder and squeezes. “Come in next time. You are always welcomed.”

Derek widens his eyes as he feels the air in the house changes. “You shouldn’t- You just gave me the permission to get in whenever I want to. Your threshold won’t even try to stop me now.”

“And why is that a bad thing?” The sheriff tilts his head slightly. “Will you ever hurt us?”

“ _No_ , but-”

“Will you let someone hurt us?”

“No-”

“Do you care about my son?”

“Yes-” Derek pauses. There it is, the truth he’s been running away from. “ _Yes_.”

“Then you are always welcomed,” the sheriff repeats. “Come in for a cup of coffee before you leave. Stay the night if you want to.”

Maybe this is why the Stilinskis have such a strong threshold. Maybe their definition of family has always been different. Maybe Derek had been contributing to the strength of the threshold and never realized it.

He wonders what he’s done to deserve their trust. He wonders if they are right about him.

“Okay.” Derek clears his throat and tries his best to smile. “I like tea better though.”

“Perfect.” The sheriff gives him a toothy grin. “Melissa gives us a lot, and I do mean _a lot_ , but neither of us likes tea. They’re all yours now.”

Derek laughs quietly.

“See you at the station tomorrow, sir.”

The sheriff nods at him.

“Goodnight, Derek.”

This is his life, and he- maybe he can be happy someday.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This sort of got out of control and became much longer and more serious than I intended to.
> 
> It's kind of impossible for me to write a story every day, because A, I'm a slow writer, and B, life happens. Life happens a lot, especially recently.
> 
> And this is supposed to be something fun to write. I really don't want to stress myself with this, so, uh, this won't be a 30 day challenge, but rather just 30 writing prompts.


End file.
